Well, now hang on here. Your interests, and this thread, don't exist in a vacuum.
You've made it clear in
this thread here that you (and your company) are trying to monetize 3rd party Roadster servicing (which I'm all for).
But, you're trying to gain Roadster service knowledge...which you will then use to charge customers...because of your expertise.
You're not "some Roadster owner" who's looking for help from the forum to troubleshoot a problem, and I think that's where some people are taking issue.
You are correct, I would LOVE to become a 3rd party Tesla service center and I am developing my own knowledge base and skill to be successful when the time comes to actually pull the trigger on that formally, however, as it stands I am not servicing anything.
What I love about this forum is the wealth of information and it is valuable to all of us! If one were to use this forum to learn how to clean their own PEM and therefore bypass Tesla service center and do it themselves they are doing so out of economic interest (if Tesla did it for free, would they still do it themselves? Possible, but far less likely). We all use one another to service our vehicles and learn more about our vehicles.
I've been a Tesla fanatic since day 1, I briefly had a reservation for an original Roadster. I think Tesla makes absolutely the best vehicles on the street! However, I don't let that cloud my judgement of their ability to service those vehicles, I feel they have failed in several ways on that front and I have voiced that on this forum. It is for those reasons that I would like to establish a 3rd party service center. However, as it is, Tesla does NOT want a 3rd party service center and they do not share information in a format accessible to people like myself trying to establish such a thing. Tesla isn't going to personally hand me any information, so what resources do I have to learn more? One of those resources is this forum and I wouldn't hold it as a secret that I use this forum to gain Roadster service knowledge, I believe we all do that here. I am (in this case, to a fault) up-front and honest, overly-ethical perhaps, and therefore I wouldn't hide that I would love to establish a 3rd party service center. Now, do I have a biz plan set up, funding in place, etc... No... I am currently in the "learning phase" and whether I actually transition to a "business phase" or not is very much, yet to be seen.
I just put an offer in on a Roadster yesterday evening, to use as a test mule, with any luck I'll get it and perhaps be one step closer! Then I can be "some Roadster owner" again!
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Remember, individual posts on TMC are of the opinion of the person posting. That is where the wealth of knowledge comes from. I am not trying to police nor threaten anyone as you have on your own drawn your own conclusion. My opinion is on-par with others, which I hope you can see, in the above responses and hence why I posted.
I agree with Habious, and for those points which we agree on, leaves me personally with an odd feeling just by the way you laid things out in time on this forum. You made some good points in some of your posts, but as others point out, it appears your all over the place in terms of your views and support of Tesla as well as openly helping others or just trying to make a financial gain by using someone elses vehicle as a test mule. And that's what people are wary of.
Its one thing to gain knowledge by using TMC as well as a knowledge sharing resource and then experiment on your own test mule, hopefully your own personal Roadster. And after learning over time, experiencing first hand a series of problems, issues, and cautionary steps with the Roadster, to move on once you have a firm background on the the problems and electrical make-up of the Roadster, to only then offer your service. I personally have been approached many times by Roadster owners to work on their car, also suggested to open a shop to explicitly work on Roadsters. Even though I have good connections with Tesla engineers who would help me if needed, I will not do this. Reason being is that there is still far too much to understand about this car that I need to get a firm grip of and most of all I am not risking someone's hard earned invested money in a car they love all for myself who I consider to be a back yard mechanic (with a high tech background) to charge someone for non-expert service where I possibly can fry a $10k PEM, a $30k+ ESS and worse yet, possibly create an fire hazard that may endanger the occupants and hurt PR for the EV community. There are too many risks involved and for that, I'm happy to offer my advice as "advice", NOT expert knowledge which I believe you find people's advice to be on this forum. *And you have to get that straight.* Would you consider diagnosing an administering person who's very sick based upon knowledge you grabbed off an Internet forum, and charge them for it? Of course its a different scenario, but the point is that advice on the Internet is not "expert" advice. Some may come from experts, some may not, that's why you can't take "all" information from a forum as expert advice. Also to do this right and if you're charging people you should have insurance to cover any loss in case of an issue on your part if you indeed are charging for your service. If not, its far better to have Tesla work on your Roadster. Then you're covered in many ways and that is by far the better deal.
I'm sure most of us here on TMC welcome a 3rd party who has expert knowledge offering their service to work on the Roadster as well as offer accessories. But looking at how many posts you've made on TMC, you haven't been on here all that long, and those of us who have been here longer have seen this type of thing come and go. Many people have lost money, had their expectations not met, and its turned out to be a loss for everyone. So with our opinions and observations many members don't want to see a repeat of history nor see any other member get taken, hence why good forum members want to express their own opinion to clearly identify hidden risks that others may not see.
Thank you for sharing this perspective!
One thing everyone should know about me is that I am an intense advocate of Electric Vehicles, I have owned more Electric Vehicles than anyone on this forum (I am 99% certain of this), I have been driving exclusively electric since before Tesla existed. I've built Electric Vehicles, I've been hired by State Farm in the past to repair Electric Vehicles, I've always repaired my own vehicles, etc. I've also built my own chargers, controllers and Battery Management Systems. I am not a "fly-by-night" mechanic that is just catching onto the EV trend with Tesla's popularity and trying to position myself to take advantage of the market. While at this time I am not an official Electric Vehicle service center and I am not a 3rd party Tesla service center I would be lying to say I don't want to be or intend to be. But, you should know this: I wouldn't do so if I felt I would be putting Electric Vehicles at risk, I would only do so to help provide service where it is needed and hopefully improve the adoption rate of Electric Vehicles in general. I am not a "wealthy" guy so I naturally am not the type who can go all in, spend $1M setting up a nice EV service center and launch the business. This means I take the "grass-roots" approach, I learn about as many EV as I can in whatever capacity I can. My intention in this forum is to accomplish this, my intention buying a salvaged Roadster was to accomplish this.
I can certainly understand some pessimism, especially if someone came around selling snake oil before but I am honestly a very ethical individual and am not looking to "take" anyone.
